


(Passenger side, lighting the sky) Always the First Star That I Find

by gunslingaaahhh



Series: Pyro!AU [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: AU, M/M, Pyro-kinesis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-01
Updated: 2012-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunslingaaahhh/pseuds/gunslingaaahhh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny has a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Passenger side, lighting the sky) Always the First Star That I Find

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the formatting issues in advance; I dunno what happened and I've already gone back in like 5677458963 times to try and fix them, and if I keep doing it I'll lose my mind.

The woman in custody was strange, was the thing. It felt like a weird tickle in Danny's brain, like when he knew he knew something, he just couldn't think of it. He knew what made this woman strange, knew it like he knew Grace's favorite bedtime story, and that Justin Bieber was the ultimate.

Her appearance only added to the feeling of strange; she looked alien beside everything else. Hawaii was bright and dripping with color; all of the locals had beautiful golden skin, communing with the sun as often as possible. The woman, though, was pale as a glass of milk. It wasn't a sick type of pale, or the pale Danny himself had been when he'd first arrived; no, this woman was prison pale, the kind of pale that happens as a result of not being allowed into the sun except for maybe an hour at a time, if that. On top of her pallor was her dark hair, darker than dark, and eyes so brown they might as well have been black. She made quite a contrast as she sat in interrogation opposite Kono, who practically glowed with vitality.

Kono slammed her way out, frustration clearly written in her face. "This chick is stone cold; she's not giving me anything. You wanna give it a shot, be my guest."

Danny shrugged, thinking what's the worst that could happen? and strolling into the room. The woman -- she hadn't said a word to them, nor did she seem to have any sort of ID on her, and wasn't that always the way? -- barely regarded him as he sat down opposite, resting his forearms on the table.

"I know it might seem like the very last thing you want to do, but I'm telling you, if you just give us your name, that would be monumentally helpful. That's all we want to do for you, here, ok, just help." He let the words hang, inclining his head to peer into her eyes, maybe establish a connection.

It was difficult to do that when he had no idea where her pupils were in that inky black mess.

Sighing and readying himself to try again, Danny cut himself off; she was speaking.

"You're on fire," she was saying, eyes locked onto his. "Inside, and outside, sometimes. You burn."

The appropriate response could've been any number of things; he could've scoffed, he could've ignored the comment and moved on, he could've asked her what she meant. The two former would've been pointless, though, and the latter stupid, because he already knew what she meant.

Knew what she meant and knew what it was he'd been trying to think of since he'd laid eyes on her.

Keeping still, Danny's mind's eye was suddenly with images of fire, and things on fire: his neighbor's rosebush that time Matty had been pushed into the thorns; Tedy Simpson's dirt bike after he'd run over Danny's girlfriend's dog; the old abandoned shack around the corner from Danny's old beat, the place where women were found raped and murdered.

Sometimes he'd been right there when those things happened, but most of the time not.

He'd always been around when they'd burned, could remember the overwhelming feeling of rage inside him, his fists clenched so hard he cut his palms. Subconsciously he'd known he'd had something to do with those fires, but he didn't want to openly consider it because, hello, that wasn't right. Normal people can't make things just burst into flame whenever they get angry or whatever.

The woman was still staring, though there was something shifting in her eyes now. They weren't just a flat, inky black, they had depth, and they knew things. Knew about rage, knew about pain, knew about fighting for control over something that couldn't be controlled.

Just like Danny knew things.

He hadn't spoken, he knew he hadn't, and he was pretty sure Kono was on the other side of the glass, waiting to see what would happen.

"It's ok," the woman said, reaching across the table and wrapping cold, sallow looking fingers around Danny's wrist. "I burn too."

~*~

There was only stunned silence then, before Danny visibly shook himself and asked the woman – again – what her name was. There was an actual expression on her face at this point, one that was hard to decipher but at least showed she was listening.

Of course, the fact that she was listening didn’t mean she’d be any more willing to cooperate. Danny could feel himself growing increasingly agitated, though he couldn’t be sure if it was because the woman was being difficult or because of what she’d said to him.

Because that had shaken him right up, and he was doing his very best to suppress the need to shudder and possibly make a scene.

He was in the middle of asking for probably the zillionth time if the woman wouldn’t _just tell him her name_ when she finally relented with the silent treatment.

“Say again?” Danny asked, wondering if he was hearing things now.

“Harper,” the woman replied, one shoulder hitching up. “Harper Keating. My name isn’t important, though.”

“Yes, yes it is, it’s extremely important,” Danny said, eyes flicking over to the two-way mirror on the wall. He knew Kono was already at the surface table, looking up everything she could possibly find on the woman now that they had a name. “This way we can figure out what’s going on with you, maybe, or where you came from, since you seem unable to divulge that information on your own.”

Harper shrugged – both shoulders this time – and allowed her inky gaze to travel around the room. Her face was like a mask now, and her eyes were so dark it was impossible to gauge any sort of emotion from them. Danny grit his teeth; part of what made him a good detective was his ability to accurately read people, to take in their expressions or what their eyes said and figure out what they were feeling.

This woman with the sallow-pale skin and black eyes was like staring at a wall, or a blank piece of paper, and it was _infuriating_. Something hot and sharp pooled in Danny’s chest, about where he usually felt his acid reflux, and he bit back a groan. It was too early in the day for heart burn, all he’d had a chance to choke down was one measly cup of coffee.

“You aren’t ready to know what I have to tell you, and any way, even if I did tell you, who’s to say you’d believe me?” Harper asked, eyes coming back to rest on Danny’s face. “You are a policeman, and policeman deal in facts, and evidence, and _science_. Scrape all of that away, and what are you left with?”

Before Danny could respond, Kono was poking her head in and asking him to come look at something. He excused himself, making sure the door was carefully shut before hurrying over to the surface table behind Kono.

“So? Anything?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“Depends on your definition,” Kono sighed, nimble fingertips flying over the screen. “Take a look at this: Harper Keating _does_ come up in a search of missing people, but as you can see” – she brought up the photo of a woman – “this is not the same lady.”

“Ok so what then, stolen identity?”

“Can’t say for sure about the stolen... maybe more like mistaken? Anyway, the real Harper Keating died of lung cancer in 2004. She didn’t have any children, and she wasn’t married. She had been at Cedars Sinai hospital in LA, but was then transferred to some sort of institution after.”

Danny blinked at the screen before pinching at the bridge of his nose and holding a hand up for Kono to pause. “Hold on… institution? Like a prison or a mental hospital?”

Kono bit her lip, eyes sliding over to the screens then back to Danny. “Second one.”

“But she had lung cancer…”

“Evidently it fried her brain as well as her lungs, brah; she assaulted a few nurses while at the hospital, and they didn’t have the facilities necessary to contain her, so they shipped her out.”

“Alright, what does that have to do with our strange lady friend?”

“Well, she could’ve been a fellow… patient… at the mental health facility, maybe interacted with the real Harper? Regardless, the woman we have in custody right now? Is not the real Harper Keating, but chances are she knew the real one, might’ve been in the same place with her.”

Considering this, Danny frowned thoughtfully down at the surface table. “Being institutionalized would definitely explain why she looks like that, and she certainly _seems_ like a good candidate, but unless we can charge her with something we can’t keep her here beyond forty-eight hours.”

“Can’t we call it disturbing the peace or something?” Kono frowned, wrinkling her nose.

“Nope,” Danny shook his head. “I mean yeah, she was definitely freaking people out downtown, and HPD is overloaded right now, which the only reason we’re dealing with her, but again… being weird and giving people the creeps isn’t a crime.”

“Too bad,” Kono said, shuddering. “She definitely weirds me out. Maybe she’s on drugs or something.”

“Hmm, maybe… ok, we can hold her for the forty-eight, put her down in holding and see if maybe she’ll detox out of anything she might have in her system. She doesn’t seem drugged, but who knows.”

They move the alleged Harper down to holding, who goes without saying much of anything (big surprise there). There is still paperwork to be done, though, so Danny volunteers while Kono steps out to grab some plate lunches. It was very quiet in HQ after that, just the whirr of the air conditioning and the odd sound of Danny’s fingertips hitting the keyboard.

Sighing, he leaned back in his chair and arched his back, stretching his arms out over his head, groaning into it as his spine popped. Slumping, he glanced around the office. Chin was wrapping something up with a case from the week before, and it had taken him to one of the other islands, though Danny couldn’t remember which.

Steve had drawn the short straw and was in court. Danny smiled at the thought: Steve hadn’t worn his dress blues, though Danny had secretly hoped he would. No, the other man had gone the route of dress pants and a button-down shirt, even going so far as to put on a tie. He’d made quite the sight, grumbling the whole while as he made his way out of HQ and down to the courthouse.  
Still grinning, Danny finished up his report and went in search of his plate lunch. He more or less forgot about the mysterious woman and her strange words.

~*~

Sitting in his apartment that night, Danny cannot sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, there are images of things burning tattooed onto the backs of his eyelids. His brain won’t stop sending the strange woman’s words buzzing through his head like a round-robin, no matter what he does.

_“You're on fire. Inside, and outside, sometimes. You burn."_

Growling to himself, eventually he gets up and heads to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom; he’s got Tylenol PM in there, and if he doesn’t take one soon, he’ll never get to sleep. Then he’ll be useless the next day and just… no. Breaking the tablet in half, he dry swallows and heads back to bed.

Within about fifteen minutes, he’s asleep. Then, he is dreaming.

_There is heat beneath his skin; it itches. Steve isn’t listening to him, the perps are yakking from where they sit against the wall, zip-tied. They ended up chasing the guys all over creation and Steve has a cut across the bridge of his nose, the type that bleeds profusely and so he’s covered in blood. The perps don’t take him seriously and so he’s yelling, putting as much authority into his voice as he can._

_It isn’t working, and Danny can feel the heat building up. He feels like he may explode, or sweat to death, or both somehow.  
Then, one of the perps breaks free (this is a dream, after all) and pulls out a gun, aiming at Steve. In the slow-motion of dreams, Danny can only watch as the trigger is pulled and the gun is fired, the bullet leaving waves in the air as it makes its way towards Steve. It hits him, penetrating into his flesh agonizingly slow; Steve is screaming, and Danny bursts.  
All is red, all is smoke, all is ash._

A harsh beeping startles Danny awake, and he has just enough time to register “smoke detector” before realizing his _sheets are smoldering_. He leaps up, swatting at himself as he runs for the kitchen and the bucket of cleaning supplies beneath the sink. The contents are dumped and the bucket is thrust beneath the faucet, Danny barely waiting long enough for it to fill half-way before dashing back to his sheets and stripping them from the mattress.

The sheets are smoking and so he dunks them in the bucket, hissing at the smoke rising from them. The mattress of his fold-out seems ok, but his sheets are ruined, as is the blanket he’d been using.

“Fuck,” he muttered, running his fingers through his hair. The beeping is still happening, so then he has to drag a chair over and climb up, jabbing at the button with his finger until the beeping stops. He waits, listening, to see if anyone else has gotten up, but there’s only silence.

It’s half-past four in the morning, the apartment smells like smoke, and Danny’s skin is tingling. The dream has already begun to leave him, but he remembers enough to be disquieted. It’s been a long time since it’s happened like that, long enough that he’d hoped it was something he’d imagined, or dreamt while sick. Clearly that was asking too much.

~*~

“Someone looks like shit this morning,” Steve says by way of greeting. Danny grumbles and keeps walking, sequestering himself in his office. He’s barely had time to sit down when Kono rushes in, eyes wide with panic.

“Danny! The woman, the creepy lady from yesterday? She’s gone!”

“What? No way, she couldn’t have – I didn’t sign her out.”

“For real, brah, I just went down there and she is _gone_. Holding is all hazy, like someone burned toast or something, and—“  
Danny looked up sharply at that, eyes narrowing. “What?”

Kono quieted at his tone, stepping back a little. “Yeah, it was all smoky and I guess when the guards got in, the smoke alarms were going off. The sprinklers had kicked in and there are puddles on the floor… Keating is gone. They checked for her first thing, but her cell was empty. The doorknob was missing, the wood around it was all scorched.”

Danny is pacing now, hands tugging at his hair. _“I burn too,” she’d said,_ he thought. _Jesus Christ._ “So what you’re telling me is they have no idea where she is?”

“Nope. Although I did some more digging last night from home, and the mental health facility? Is out in the boonies somewhere, on this island. Apparently they keep it very hush-hush, but we have her picture, maybe we can go there and see if they know her real name?” Kono proposed, looking like a kicked puppy. Danny hated seeing her like that, and hated even more that he’d put that expression on her face.

“I need to think about this, ok, before we do anything. I need to talk to Steve…”

Stepping out of his own office, Danny shouldered his way into Steve’s, talking even before Steve had had a chance to stop what he’d been doing. He listened, though, without interruption, and for that Danny was grateful.

“So what you’re telling me is that we’ve got a potentially dangerous, mentally ill person roaming around? One that likes to play with fire?” he asked, frown lines firmly in place between his eyebrows.

Danny sighed heavily, exhausted already. “That is indeed what I’m telling you, babe. We patted her down before she was moved to holding, I know for a fact she didn’t have any sort of anything on her, I have no idea how she managed to… burn the doorknob out of the door like that.”

“And you said Kono had found the facility where she might’ve stolen this other woman’s name?”

“Yup.”

“Well, nothing else has come in, so let’s go.”

Hesitating, Danny threw a look out into the bull-pen, where Kono was figuring out the fastest, easiest way to the hospital. “Look, babe, I know you have my back, but Kono and I are the ones who brought her in. I think we should be the ones to take care of it.”  
Steve makes a face, folding his arms across his chest. He doesn’t look angry so much as… jealous. _Who does he have to be jealous of?_ Danny wondered, shaking his head at Steve’s petulant expression.

“If that’s what you want,” Steve started. “What do you need me and Chin to do here?”

“Huh… well, see if there’s any footage that can be pulled from holding, for one. If she got her hands on accelerants or something, I’d like to know about it in the event any of us try to apprehend her again. And just… fuck, I don’t know, I’d start casing the area. There’s no real way to know how long ago she broke out, but if it was recently maybe someone saw her.”

Steve just nods, though Danny can tell he wants to say something else. They talk about what they’re going to do, not so much because no one else thought of it, but because it’s easier to think out loud. He also knows that to Steve, this sort of thing is “busy work,” and ideally what he’d like not to be doing.

“We’ll be in touch,” Danny tells him before vacating the office and grabbing Kono. She looks surprised, but covers it well, following him out to the Camaro.

~*~

“Well that’s annoying,” Chin muttered underneath his breath, rewinding back the footage he’d gotten from holding.

“What, we got something?” Steve asked, coming up to stand beside.

Chin sighed. “The opposite, actually; the smoke starts almost immediately, though I can’t find a source. It rises so fast and obscures the area so quickly, the cameras are pretty much useless. The audio isn’t any help, either: there’s the beeping from the smoke alarms, and the sound of the sprinklers kicking in, but nothing that sounds like a doorknob being ripped out. No coughing, no clearing of the throat, nothing. Not a single thing to indicate that anyone had even been in there.”

“That doesn’t even make sense. Ok, we need to start asking around, then. The timestamp puts her leaving around half-past four, and it’s ten now. Maybe if we’re lucky, someone’ll remember seeing her.”

Nodding, Chin follows Steve outside, hoping they don’t end up on some sort of wild goose chase.

~*~

The ride out to the hospital took about an hour, and Danny was quiet the whole while. Steve had texted him with information regarding the security cameras and the time stamp, and seeing the numbers (“ _4:30am, shes been gone 6hrs or so_ ”) had made something cold and oily curl up in his belly. No way that was just a coincidence, no way.

Kono would shoot him looks from the passenger seat, but didn’t try to make conversation. She could feel how tense Danny was, and he felt bad about that, too.

When they arrived at the hospital, it took both their badges and offering to call Governor Denning’s office before the old, crotchety guard was willing to let them in.

“If that isn’t spooky, I dunno what is,” Kono muttered, turning in her seat slightly to watch the guard house shrink behind them. “That was some _Shutter Island_ stuff.”

“Shutter what?” Danny asked, only half listening. He was trying to remember where the guard had said for them to park.

“It’s a movie, came out like two years ago or something, Leo Dicaprio was in it,” Kono said, squinting at the property. “He played a US marshal investigating a disappearance at a mental hospital on an island in Massachusetts somewhere.”

“Uh-huh, and let me guess: things did not end well.”

“Nope.”

Danny sighed. “Great, I’m so glad that’s what you’re likening this adventure to. Let’s get this show on the road, and I don’t wanna hear anything else about Leo unless it’s gonna help us.”

“You got it,” Kono replied, fighting a grin. Danny grumbled something about sassy rookies and followed her up the well-manicured path towards the main doors of the large welcome building. Glancing around, Danny felt himself frowning; the information Kono had found suggested the place was a bit older than it’s appearance was telling them. The brick was new, the cement between still light colored and clean. The walkway was composed of neatly laid stone, in a variety of soothing shades, various plants on either side.  
The glass doors slid open of their own volition, and Danny had to take a moment to glance around. The rotunda – it was way too big to be a lobby – had dark marble flooring, taupe and beige painted walls, and large bay windows. Everything was open and full of light; in other words, the perfect backdrop for families nervous about committing their loved ones.

A beautifully built desk with the same marble for a top was towards the back, beneath a sign board directory. The woman stationed there was young and local, hair pulled back into a no-nonsense bun. She regarded them silently before a sunny smile broke out on her face.

“Good morning! Welcome to Kahi Mohala Behavioral Health, how can I help you today?” she asked, eyes bright. Danny and Kono shared a look briefly before Kono called up the photos of the real Harper Keating and the woman who had stolen her name.

“Would you be able to tell us if you’ve seen or know anything about either of these women?” Kono asked, offering her phone to the secretary. The woman squinted at the screen, eyes narrowing as she studied the faces. Danny watched her closely, and noticed something flicker in her expression when she came upon the second photo.

“I recognize the first one, absolutely. She was dying of lung cancer on the mainland, LA if I remember correctly, and the smog wasn’t making things any easier. After a lot of debate with regards to her mental state, she was transferred to us, where she could be looked after and also able to breathe just a bit easier.”

“Do you remember her name?” Danny asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels.

“Keating, I believe. She passed away a few years ago, though.”

“We know. Our problem is that the second woman is running around using the late Ms Keating’s name, and we were wondering if that was because they’d both spent time here.”

The secretary – Alani, if her nametag was to be believed – made a non-committal noise. “I’m one of a handful of staff that has been here for more than a few years. A storm about five years ago a storm ripped through the area and destroyed the main building and the building containing the doctors’ offices and records storage. Anything before about four years will be difficult to pin down.”

Nodding, Danny prodded at his temples. “Of course. So are you telling me that _everyone_ who worked here before all of that is gone? That cannot possibly be.”

Alani wrinkled her nose. “No, that isn’t what I’m saying, there are janitorial staff and such that have been here for over a decade… but I assume that as police officers you want to speak to the doctors who treated Ms Keating, and unfortunately, they _are_ gone. A transfer to a mainland hospital.”

“Janitorial staff might remember something…” Kono murmured. “Do you have a list of employees?”

“Of course,” Alani replied, sitting down to the computer at her desk. Kono made her way behind to watch, and Danny strolled around the lobby, taking in the framed photos of the current psychologists and doctors. There was a little blurb beneath each photo, detailing their name, how long they’d been at Kahi Mohala, and where they were from. Danny whistled; some were native to the islands, others from the mainland US, and still others from around the world. It was an impressive mix for a place that was so out of the way. Unfortunately, none of the practicing physicians had been working there before the storm, and therefore none of them would know Keating.

_Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t recognize the other chick,_ he thought. _She might be a recent release._

“Are any of these folks in their offices right now? Can we go to that building?” Danny called, gesturing to the faces on the wall. Alani stood and glared at him; the sunny, helpful secretary from before was gone.

“I can take a look, if you don’t mind waiting,” she said, the tone of her voice indicating that she’d take as long as she damn well pleased.

“Nope, no rush,” Danny grinned, gesturing for Kono to join him.

“The janitorial staff have access to just about all of the buildings,” she told him, standing close and running a finger down the fresh printout. “Some of them have had to undergo special training to be certified to go into the more, uh, violent areas. Keating had attacked her nurses before, right? Would that have qualified her for lockdown here?”

“I dunno, we’d have to ask around… none of these folks were here when she was, they all came in after she died. I was thinking, though, that maybe our creepy lady is more recent? She might’ve been here when Keating was and took her name, but was released within the last few years or even months.”

Kono’s eyes widened. “That would be helpful, but that depends on whether or not they want to talk to us. If they’re all as cheerful as Ms Thing over there, it’s gonna be a long day.”

Danny chummily agreed, standing beside the desk and watching as Alani grudgingly called up the information they needed. Once done, they exited the building and headed toward the car; the actual offices were further in on the property, and it would take too long to walk.

“So what happens if none of these people know our mystery lady is?” Kono asked as Danny tried to maneuver them into a spot. “How else could she know who Harper Keating is… er, was?”

“Let’s cross that bridge if we come to it, alright? I’m hoping that one of these people does know, and then we won’t have to make any inquiries over at Cedars Sinai.” Shutting the car off they, both leaned forward and peered out of the windshield at the building before them.

Where the welcome building appeared fresh off the assembly line, the office building looked like it was barely holding itself up. The brick was chipped, the paint was pealing off, the windows seemed dark and dusty.

“Isn’t this charming,” Danny muttered, following Kono into the building. They were greeted by another secretary – an older woman this time – who was able to let them know specifically who was in and who wasn’t. She didn’t seem to care either way what they were after or why; if Alani had let them through, that was enough for her.

The first handful of doctors didn’t recognize the strange woman, and Danny could feel himself getting disheartened. If they did end up having to get in touch with Cedars Sinai, it would take who-knew how long for them to hear back. It was a large hospital, and Keating had passed away years ago; who knew if they even still had her records?

Luckily, though, the last office on that floor boasted a Dr Robert Hoaka, a kindly gentleman with outrageous salt-and-pepper eyebrows.

“Can’t say I recall that first woman, but I certainly recognize the second,” he said, lifting his considerable glasses off his nose to examine the image on Kono’s phone. “Very troubled woman, suffered from severe psychotic delusions.”

“Did you treat her?” Kono asked, sounding hopeful.

“I only consulted on her treatment… the person who was treating her retired a few months ago.”

“So what, then, you don’t have anything else with regards to information?” Danny asked, brows furrowing. Just when he thought they could catch a break.

“Didn’t say that, don’t fret. I consulted in the beginning, thinking I was just offering my opinion – hmmph! – little did I know, I’d be taking over her case at the end. This was for the last six months or so, when she was more or less settled into her treatment routine. She’d accepted her meds, seemed to be responding to treatment – she wasn’t telling us about delusions or dreams anymore in her sessions – so we thought we would move her to low-level security.”

“Hate to break it to you, doc, but that was a bad move. We had this woman in custody yesterday because she was freaking people out on the streets, we put her in holding for the night, and when we went to see her in the morning, she was gone. When did she break out of here?” Danny stroked his fingers down his tie, shooting Kono a ‘is this guy for real’ look.

Dr Hoaka’s face had reddened considerably, and he was slumping slightly behind his desk. “She _didn’t_ break out! Someone, a relative, had been in talks with the VIPs about getting her checked out. They said that yes, she’d been responding well to treatment, but that they needed a final evaluation detailing whether or not she could function safely in society.”

Kono rolled her eyes. “Let me guess, you were the one they asked to do the evaluation, because you’d been the one working with her the closest.”

“But only for those last few months! She was a picture of good mental health! She was even participating in our work-study program. There was nothing about her behavior that suggested she’d be a threat to herself or anyone else.” Dr Hoaka was sweating now, eyes darting between Danny and Kono.

Pinching at the bridge of his nose, Danny tried to make sense of what he was hearing. “Ok, alright, _maybe_ , if you give us a hand with this and your evaluation isn’t _entirely_ a load of crap, maybe we can get whatever board certified you to take it easy. We need her name, her entire file if you can spare it. Now.”

Hoaka busied himself with calling up the file and booting up his printer, making relatively short work. Danny didn’t bother to think about doctor-patient confidentiality agreements; the woman wasn’t technically a patient anymore, and it wasn’t like the guy hadn’t already violated a whole bunch of codes of conduct.

~*~

“Our mystery woman is Maria Shawn, she is in her late twenties, and she has been in and out of mental health facilities her entire life.” Danny paused, glancing up from his copy of the file to make sure Steve, Chin, and Kono were with him.

“And this Hoaka guy thought it’d be a good idea to discharge her _why?_ ” Chin asked, incredulous.

“I have absolutely no idea, but given how, uh, _hostile_ just about everyone there was, I’m willing to bet this is not the first time something like this has happened. Now, Maria is originally from Little Rock and has bounced all over the continental US, until she ended up at a place in Washington state. According to this, she created quite a stir and before long transfer papers were being drawn up to send her here.”

“And of course what Dr Hoaka had on file is completely independent of the last place she was in.” Kono leaned back in her chair, a frown firmly in place.

Chin scanned his copy of the file quickly and scrubbed at his face. “Kahi Mohala didn’t have where she was transferred from written down anywhere?”

Danny sighed heavily, tossing his file onto the table. “Even if they did, this alleged storm destroyed that building. I dunno how much I buy into that story, anyway: the office building is also where records were stored, that’s what the secretary told us. It stands to reason, then, that the office building would also be brand-spanky new, just like the welcome center. Guys, it wasn’t. It looked old and beaten as hell, which means the secretary is either lying, or she doesn’t actually know where the records were kept.”

“Rewind,” Steve piped up, holding up his hands. “I just wanna make sure I’ve got this right, here: we’ve got a woman using a dead person’s name as her own rather than just going by her given name, who is running around loose in Honolulu because some doctor thought it’d be a good idea to release her. She dabbles in arson, probably has a whole host of other issues we don’t know about, and we know nothing about her beyond that and what Hoaka has written down from his six months of treating her himself.”

Silence as everyone glanced at one another, and Danny shrugged. “That sounds about right to me, yeah. Basically we have nothing to go on besides her name and what she looks like. I’ve already given a description to HPD, and Kono put in a word with the airport and emergency rooms. If she tries to leave the island, we’ll know. If she gets injured, we’ll know, and if HPD picks her up, we’ll know. For now, we just have to hope that we either get a tip or that she doesn’t do anything stupid before someone catches up with her.”

Steve made a face and slapped his palms down onto the table. “Well that is just fantastic, really. I’m sorry, hoping an _arsonist_ decides _not_ to light any fires doesn’t sound like my idea of a care-free afternoon. I’d rather be out looking for her myself.”

Danny made grand sweeping gestures with both arms, eyebrows raised. “Be my guest! Except that we have no idea where to start. I realize this is an island and there are only so many places she could go, but it’s still a lot of ground to cover when we don’t know what she has planned, if anything.”

Standing, Chin groaned as he stretched his back. “Alright, I’ve got her real name now, and we know she was in a place in Washington state before she came here. Maybe I can narrow down a search to which hospital and go from there. If we’re lucky, even if they don’t still have her on file, maybe someone there can tell us better what we’re dealing with.”

That said, Chin left the conference room, file clasped in one hand. Kono followed, heading towards her own office. Steve and Danny remained, Danny picking at invisible lint on his pants while Steve stared at him. After a minute, Danny couldn’t take it any more.  
“Do you mind? I mean, you do realize that staring at me like that is creepy, right?”

Steve blinked. “I’m not staring.”

“Huh, yeah right. Ok, I’ll bite: what’s the matter with you now.”

“Nothing.”

“Steven, you have had a face on ever since Kono and I left to check out Kahi Mohala this morning. It is now four in the afternoon, and we’ve been running around like crazy people all day long. Is it because you didn’t get to blow anything up? Or maybe that you didn’t get to drive the Camaro like you’re trying out for NASCAR.”

Steve was frowning now, nostrils flaring and a line smack in between his eyebrows. “What are you even _talking_ about? What kind of person do you think I am, that you believe my entire life revolves around explosions and driving _your car?_ ”

Danny pumped his fists, grinning. “Aha! He calls it ‘my car’ after months and months! Yes, Steven, it is my car. That isn’t what this is about, though I’ll count it as a victory. No, you’re jealous and I can’t understand why. We spend every waking minute together, practically, and it isn’t like I haven’t partnered up with Kono or Chin before. You’ve been with them, too, so I know it isn’t that, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the car. So what, babe? Are you mad that a case came along that wasn’t dropped into your lap by the governor? Because I gotta tell you, even if HPD hadn’t been stuffed to the gills, we would’ve been dealing with this eventually. I mean, hello, she’s psychotic and she likes to play with fire.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Danny.”

“Fine, continue being the strong, silent type. I don’t care, the less you talk the less of a headache I have.”

Something close to hurt flashes in Steve’s eyes, but it’s gone before Danny can actually read into it. “I’ve got paperwork to finish up; give a shout if anything else pops up on Maria Shawn.”

Steve leaves Danny alone in the conference room, wondering what the hell just happened. Steve likes to think he’s hard to read, that nothing can hurt him, least of all words, but Danny knows better. He knows Steve gets his feelings hurt – because he has them, whether he likes it or not – and that he tries very hard not to let it show. That’s almost impossible, of course, as Steve has his heart out there for everyone to see, all of the time.

Danny hates himself a little for being the predominant reason that hurt look ends up on Steve’s face, because he knows that out of everyone Steve knows on the island, Danny is the closest to him. Keeping him close means Danny has the most means of hurting him, and Danny stupidly forgets that Steve is emotionally stunted, that even little gestures can be lost on or confuse him.  
It isn’t his fault, of course it isn’t, but what could Danny do? Steve was a fucking Navy SEAL, for Pete’s sake, he should have a thicker skin.

“And thinking that makes me _more_ of an asshole, because then I’m making assumptions,” Danny muttered to himself before leaving the room and wandering into his own office. He could easily see Steve, who was laboriously pecking out a report. Steve was a decent typist, but ever since the “Form 42-B Incident,” he takes a painstaking amount of time filling everything in. That one form had almost gotten them into a _lot_ of trouble, and if the team was disbanded because of him, Steve would never forgive himself.

Huffing a breath, Danny opened his web browser with a notion of doing a little searching himself. Maria’s words had never left him, and the four-thirty in the morning thing was too big to ignore. Tongue caught between his teeth, Danny called up the local newspaper from his home town, grudgingly paying the fee to access the archives. Newspapers from twenty-five and thirty years ago flashed across the screen, but none of them mentioned anything about fires. Frowning, he went in search of more recent articles, from when he was still a cop in Jersey.

The shack where those girls had been found had gone up not even ten minutes after he and his partner had arrived. He remembered it clearly: the feeling of sickness, of helplessness at the thought of those girls being tortured and the bastard that had done it roaming free. Knowing they’d had their last breathes in a shitbox of a place had made him see red, made his jaw clench in fury.  
Luckily no one had been inside, the ME’s already done and the crime-scene investigators already packed up. When the first tendril of smoke had curled up from the roof, no one had noticed. When flames began licking at the shards of glass in what had once been windows, no one batted an eye. It wasn’t until a knot of dry wood exploded that everyone jumped and turned to look; there had been yelling, and shouts for the fire department to be called as the officers on the scene rushed to contain the blaze.

Danny had stood back by the squad car, eyes bright as he took it in. Deep down, on an almost primal level, he knew he was responsible for that fire, just like he knew he was responsible for the rose bush and the bicycle when he was a kid. Something deeply satisfying came from knowing that he’d done something like that, but on the wings of that came blind panic.

After the shack fire, Danny had started reading up on anger control management. He’d always been a hot head, that went without saying, but as he got older he came to realize that the chances of something _terrible_ happening as a result were too great. Especially because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to control whatever it was that was inside him.

He’d tried, of course, forcing the flames to come. He’d been successful, too, focusing and willing and making whatever it was burn, right there, all on it’s own. It had been thrilling, knowing that he’d lit something on fire _with his mind_. Again, though, he panicked because nothing about that was right, nothing about that was _sane_ , and if anyone ever found out, he’d be locked up and they’d throw away the key.

Now, sitting in front of his computer and remembering, Danny felt a trembling in his belly. He’d never met anyone who could do what he could do, had been blissfully smoke-free for _years_ thanks to meditation and a few other techniques.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true—during the bad times with Rachel, there were often nights when Danny would slam out of the house, fuming, and drive off to the middle of nowhere. He could feel something great and terrible billowing inside him, in his head, and he’d just barely make out of the car before a nearby tree or wooden fence burst into flame. It took a lot out of him, and he’d end up on his knees in the dirt, sobbing, because if he’d waited any longer it would’ve been his house. It would’ve been his family.

Ice shivers through his veins and he quickly closes the browser window. He hasn’t made anything smoke or burn since the divorce, though he’d felt the familiar urge (working with Steve did that to him). He hadn’t felt that type of rage… though that night when he’d lit his sheets on fire, he’d been dreaming, and he’d been angry in the dream.

“Because someone had hurt Steve,” he whispered to the computer screen. “Even though I knew it wasn’t real, the idea of someone shooting at and hurting him made me so angry, I lit the sheets on fire.”

“You did what?” Steve asked, magically appearing in the doorway. Danny just stared at him, mentally backtracking to try and figure out just how long Steve had been standing there.

“Nothing. You done in there?”

“Yeah… you aren’t thinking of cutting out early, are you? Danny, we haven’t had an update on Maria Shawn—“

“Did I say that? No, no I did not. I was _thinking_ it, however, and I’ll tell you why. Sitting around here and waiting and sitting around at home waiting is the same. Regardless, we’re gonna be running around. If I were her, regardless of my sanity, I’d be laying low tonight. She was just apprehended and look how well that went? I highly doubt we’re gonna hear from her. Let’s call it a night, get some grub, and go home.”

Steve stares at him for a minute, considering, brows furrowed. “I dunno... seems sort of irresponsible. And anyway, do you really wanna go and sit around in that dumpy rental you have?”

Blinking at Steve for a moment, Danny threw his hands up, silently pleading for guidance. “What would you suggest then, Steven, that we go back to your place? What if I wanted to relax, huh? You said so yourself this morning that I looked like shit.”

Taken aback, Steve just stares at him some more before dropping his eyes. “M’sorry. Yeah, we can head out, if you want.”

Removing himself from his desk, Danny shouted to Chin and Kono to take the rest of the night and that they’d hear if something came up. Steve hovered behind him, quietly following him out to the cars. Rolling his eyes, Danny paused by Steve’s truck and folded his arms across his chest.

“Can you stop sulking for one minute? D’you think that’s possible?”

“I’m not!”

“Yes you are! Are you even serious? Babe, god forbid _one night_ I not be in the mood for beer and horrible TV. I am tired, I slept like an asshole last night, I just want to go back to my – how’d you put it? – ‘dumpy rental’ and pass out.”

There was definitely a degree of hurt on Steve’s face now, as if the idea of being away from Danny for the evening pained him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“How’d you mean it.”

“Uh… just that… um. I have satellite TV? And… a more comfortable couch? So… it’d be… nicer?”

“You are grasping at straws.”

“Danny! C’mon, just come over, ok? What if we get a call that Maria Shawn has been apprehended, huh? It’ll be faster if we’re already together, then we can just take one car and go. You know I’m right.”

Scrubbing hard at his face, Danny’s mind raced to find a hole in Steve’s argument. Beyond just telling him to fuck off – and really, when had that ever worked? – he was pretty much stuck. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t go veg out in one of the spare rooms… though that didn’t solve the problem of him wanting to do a little more research on his condition. Chin had forwarded everyone a PDF of all the information he’d compiled, and he really did want to read it…

“Alright, I am willing to subject myself to you for the evening on the condition that I can use your laptop without you bugging me about what I’m doing, _and_ that if I decide to take aforementioned laptop with me to a guest room, you won’t give me sass about it.”

Steve was quiet as he mulled this over, not quite done pouting. “I guess…”

“Great. See you there.”

Heading over to the Camaro and hopping in, the crueler part of him debated just not going, just heading back to his rental. This was Steve, though, and if Danny didn’t show up within five minutes—hell, if Steve saw the headlights _go in a different direction_ , he’d head over and probably drag Danny back with him. It was pointless to even consider, so he put the car in drive and followed Steve back to his house.

~*~

Steve fussed over him for the first twenty minutes, before Danny threatened to go home. Pouting for real, Steve stomped back to his side of the couch and slumped into his seat, throwing petulant glares in Danny’s direction periodically.

To his credit, Danny was pretty immersed in his findings. He’d typed his “symptoms” into a Google search and – after weeding through an impressive about of bullshit – managed to find some useful information.

Like that fact that what he had, or rather, what he could _do_ , was called “pyro-kinesis.” Basically, it was the fiery version of “telekinesis,” or the ability to move things about with one’s mind. Danny could use his brain to set things on fire. That was pretty cool… but also somewhat horrifying considering how closely linked it was with his moods.

According to Chin’s research – and really, bless the man – Maria Shawn had professed to be able to do the exact same thing. She’d been tested for everything under the sun, and when she became violent, was bounced from hospital to hospital. She’d allegedly been on fire _herself_ , professing to be able to produce flames _from her body_.

_No wonder she was locked in a loony bin for so long,_ Danny thought, eyes wide as he scrolled through the information before him. He read articles on spontaneous human combustion – terrifying – and fire eaters. There were people who walked on hot coals, and exposed themselves to extreme temperatures, saying they were immune. He wasn’t sure about all of that, but he was pretty sure the pyro-kinetic thing was the real deal. It was the emotional triggers he needed to figure out.

And also why he was suddenly so strangely ok with it.

“Danno?” Steve called, voice soft. Danny startled slightly; he’d been so immersed in his reading, he’d forgotten where he was for a minute there.

“Yeah babe?”

“You ok over there? You’ve been pretty quiet for the last while.” Leave it to Steve to be overly concerned about silence.

“Fine, fine, just reading.”

“Oh… anything interesting?” Steve began to tentatively slide across the cushions, a curious and hopeful expression on his face.

Quickly closing out of everything, Danny slammed the laptop closed. “Nope. I’m gonna go lay down I think. Taking this with me, if you don’t mind.”

Steve chewed at his bottom lip, brows furrowed as he watched Danny make his way over to the stairs. “’Kay… g’night, then, I guess. Unless we have to get up.”

Danny didn’t reply, just tossed Steve a salute before padding down the hall towards the spare room. He felt bad, of course he did, being so evasive, but it was for Steve’s own good. The less he knew about everything, the better.

Steve remained on the couch, a weird, heavy feeling in his chest. If Danny had at least left the laptop, he’d be able to go through the history… but Danny knew Steve well, and that was why he’d taken it with him. Steve couldn’t help his curiosity any more than Danny could help talking with his hands.

Didn’t mean it hurt any less when Danny refused to let Steve in on what was going on with him. Danny had never, _ever_ closed himself off from Steve, and the fact that he was doing it all of a sudden made Steve very nervous. He knew on some level that the Maria Shawn case was of some importance, he just couldn’t figure out why. He also was baffled as to why Danny had been talking about fire earlier. It just didn’t make any sense.

He tried to watch TV for a while longer, but his mind kept rerouting back to Danny. Groaning and rubbing at his eyes, Steve clicked the TV off and headed upstairs himself. It wasn’t that late yet, but he didn’t have anything else to do if Danny was already laying down.

Poking his head into the spare room, he saw that Danny was dozing with the laptop over his knees. If Steve tried to take it, Danny would most definitely know… frowning, Steve shut the door quietly behind himself and padded down the hall to his own bedroom.  
Evidently Steve was more tired than he’d realized, because he himself was dozing almost immediately. He felt his body melt into the mattress, his mind floating away to dreamland. Danny was in the dream, and he was yelling about something – of course – and waving his arms… Steve couldn’t hear him, though, and every time he tried to get closer, Danny was suddenly further away. It was very frustrating, and Steve could feel himself getting angry. He shouted in the dream, trying to tell Danny that he couldn’t make sense of what he was saying, but he got no response.

The dream quickly flipped to a new scene, and this time Steve was in his office. It was third person, he was watching himself at the desk and saw when Danny came in, arms waving and mouth running. A stack of papers that reached the ceiling appeared on Steve’s desk, and Danny said “and you have to sign off on all of these, so I can go.” Confused, Steve tried to ask what dream-Danny meant, while the dream version of himself just sat there. Danny left the office then, and Steve tried to follow him but found that he couldn’t.

He screamed after him, voice echoing and bouncing off the walls, causing the impossibly tall stack of paper to come tumbling down.

Steve awoke to someone saying his name, and jerked against the hands on him. He blinked into the darkness, and realized it was Danny, who’s hair was wild from sleep.

“Babe, are you ok? What the hell is going on, did you have a bad dream?”

Eyes darting around the room, Steve took a few deep breathes as the last of the dream receded. “Yeah, that was weird… sorry if I woke you.”

“Nah, I was just napping… you did scare the shit out of me for a minute there, though. I had no idea a noise like that could even come out of you.”

Steve didn’t have anything to say about that, just shooed Danny out of his room. It was late now, and after quickly checking his phone, saw that no one had called with updates. So far, so good. Flopping back down onto the bed, Steve threw an arm over his eyes and huffed a breath, and before long he was sleeping again.

~*~

Danny had drifted off almost as soon as he’d gone back to bed, and found himself startling awake when he heard what sounded like Steve yelling. Frowning, Danny stumbled from the bed and poke his head out into the hall to listen and yes, Steve was definitely yelling. Hurrying back into his clothes, Danny made his way downstairs to see if there was a person actually in the house or if it was over the phone.

“I don’t _care_ , I was supposed to be informed _immediately_ if anything changed!”

Over the phone, great.

“Uh, babe? Who’re you yelling at when it’s” – Danny quickly checked the time – “barely seven in the morning?”

Steve flapped a hand at him, Aneurysm Face clearly in play. “I’d appreciate if you’d send everything over to Five-O HQ right now, so we don’t fall any further behind with this.” He hung up, still fuming and glared at Danny. “Can you believe it? Some shit went down with Maria Shawn last night and no one thought to contact any of us!”

“Really? Wait… what kind of shit, Steve?”

Still glaring, Steve folded his arms across his chest. “The dead kind.”

“Are—are you _kidding_ me?! She’s dead? What the hell is going _on_ on this pineapple infested hellhole! Jesus Christ… where’d they find her?”

“Red light district; Max has her now.”

Sighing, Danny smoothed at his hair to get it into some semblance of order. “Alright, let’s go see the man.”

As they made their way over, Danny called Kono and Chin to give them the details. Kono’s reaction was… explosive, to say the least; Danny had to hold the phone away from his ear while she flipped out. The cousins agreed to meet them at HQ and get started on the findings HPD had (hopefully) already sent over.

Piano music greeted them as they made their way to Max’s office; Danny rolled his eyes. After almost shouting to get his attention, Max lead them to the morgue, talking a mile a minute.

“It is most interesting, I have never seen anything like this in my career.” He ushered them in, hurrying to pull the sheet back and reveal the woman beneath. “Her clothing was burnt to cinders; a breeze could’ve blown them off. However, as you can see, her skin is untouched. There is not a single burn mark on her, nor is she marked by ash. That is not the interesting part, however.”

Steve pinched at the bridge of his nose. “What is the interesting part, Max?”

Snapping on a pair of gloves, Max delicately grasped the edges of the Y-incision and pealed back the skin. If Steve was startled, he didn’t let on, though Danny did hear the quick intake of breath. For Danny, all he could do was gawk.

“That’s… she looks barbequed! Jesus fuck, her insides are charred like she was left on the grill too long. How the fuck does that happen?” Danny demanded, arms waving.

Max glanced at him sidelong and shrugged. “How indeed; your guess is as good as mine. There were no wounds on her body before I opened her up; if I may err on the side of the fantastic for a moment, I’d conclude that she was burned alive from the inside.”

Danny and Steve exchanged a look before turning their attention back to the woman in front of them.

“Ok, so there’s nothing on her to indicate she was murdered, is what you’re saying?” Danny asked.

Max shook his head. “Nothing physically; I’ve sent some samples of her blood and urine to toxicology to see if they can find anything out of the ordinary.”

Refraining from wringing his hands, Danny thanks him and grabs Steve by the elbow, dragging him from the office. Steve just goes, quiet and watchful, and Danny feels like he might scream. It’s the kind of watching Steve does when he’s worried about him, and Danny is in no position to deal with that.

He’s more concerned about the fact that this woman more or less roasted herself from the inside out, and the fact that she could do more or less the same things _he_ could. Was it possible for him to experience the same fate? The idea was terrifying on a level Danny wasn’t ready to comprehend.

“Danno… are you alright?” Steve was asking, brows knit together with worry. “You’re looking a little pale.”

“What, paler than usual?” Danny grinned, trying for levity. “Dunno about you, but that’s my first time seeing anything like that.”

“Well, I’ve seen guys blown up that looked like that… but on the _outside,_ not the inside. She looked char broiled, and that is just wrong.”

Sighing, Danny smoothed at his hair before pausing next to the Camaro. “Alright, ok, so now we need to figure out how and or why. I mean, who does that to someone? Cruel and unusual.”

“Until Max gets the results back from tox, I doubt we’ll have the ‘how’… though maybe we can figure out the ‘why.’ Dr Hoaka said a relative checked her out, right?”

“He said he _thought_ it was a relative. Considering how much bullshit this place is handing out, who can know for sure? For all we know it was some slob from off the street.” Danny can feel a headache forming, can feel frustration and confusion brewing hot in his stomach.

“I wouldn’t go that far. Hey, do you remember seeing any security cameras on the property? Place like that should have some sort of surveillance system, maybe we can find footage of whoever checked her out.”

Excited to have a task, Steve hops into the car and Danny barely has a chance to follow him before they’re pealing out of the parking lot. He all but has to wrestle the wheel out of Steve’s hands to get him to stop at Danny’s current place; he’s still wearing clothes from the night before, and he’ll be damned if he spends the entire day looking rumpled and probably stinking. Steve grudgingly agrees, sitting in the car and waiting.

As it would turn out, most of what HPD had to send over were things Max had been able to tell them. Danny throws his hands up in frustration, pacing around the office and cursing. Chin just rolls his eyes while Kono attempts valiantly not to laugh. It would be funny, sure, except for the part where Danny is _freaking out_. Eventually he can’t take it anymore and announces that he is going home.

“By which I mean _my_ home,” he adds, pointedly looking at Steve, who closes his mouth. “I am tired, this case has been pissing me off, and I need to take a very long nap. Is there anything else?” he asks, looking to Chin.

“Not that I’ve heard… and to be honest, I’d kind of like to get out of here myself. What d’you say, Boss?”

Three sets of eyes turn to Steve, who tries to quickly find excuses to keep everyone from leaving but comes up short. “Ok, fine we can go.”

Steve drives back to his house, allowing Danny to squawk until he points at the truck and raises a brow. Danny grumbles and climbs into the driver’s seat, tossing off a salute before backing out. Steve watches him go, that nugget of worry still gnawing at him.

It is then that he remembers the laptop, and he practically flies into the house and up the stairs to the guest room, bottom lip caught between his teeth. He boots up the computer and eagerly checks the history… only to discover that it’s been deleted. The entire history for the last _week_ has been deleted, and Steve pounds a fist on the bed in aggravation. Danny must’ve erased it the night before.

Irritated, Steve changes into swim trunks and stomps down the beach towards the water.

~*~

Danny has paced his rental enough times to have worn a hole in the carpet. He’s terrified and angry and worried and it’s all just too much. He’s got flashes of destruction and death running through his mind’s eye, and the charred insides of Maria Shawn, who’d seemed to know more about him than he did. He was angry about her death because now he had no one to ask, no one to _explain_ all of this to him, this thing he’d been hiding for so long.

The temperature has risen steady in the tiny rental – one of those teeny bungalow houses, with one big room to hang out in and a bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen crammed into what might’ve once been walk in closets – and he checks the thermostat. It’s far warmer than it really should be, considering he’s got the windows and the storm door open. A flicker of panic sparks in his belly, and Danny quickly leaves his rental, taking deep gulps of air once he’s outside. Evidently it isn’t just anger or pure rage that fuels this little issue, it’s panic as well.

Frowning, Danny decides maybe he should take a walk, and so he does, patting his pockets to double check for his phone and keys. Everything is in order, so he locks up and heads around the block, trying to cool off. It’s still relatively early in the day, and kids are just returning home from school, buses stopping periodically.

Some of the parents recognize him and wave hello, and he does his best to smile and wave back. He’s got a t-shirt and jeans on, with sneakers; he doesn’t mind saying hello, he’d just prefer to do it in more professional attire.

He ends up at a park, and settles himself on a bench. A few folks are out playing Frisbee with their dogs, and there are a few older kids having a pick-up game of touch football. Danny watches them, wistful for a moment. He’s taken back to like-minded activities when he was a kid, running around with Matty and his sisters, a football tossed between them as they ran around the block.

On the heels of that memory comes the one when Danny lit the rose bush on fire, and he has to shake himself out of it, take deep breathes. He’d been angry then, and he’d been angry the times with the motorbike and the shack… but he’d been _scared_ in the dream with Steve. The idea of any of his teammates being hurt on the job scared him, no doubt about that – they were ohana, after all – but the idea of it being Steve frightened him most.

Because he cared for Steve the most. Because Steve, out of everyone he’d met in Hawaii, meant the most to him.

The realization that he didn’t just care for Steve as his best friend, but as something _more_ , hit Danny like a punch to the gut. There was a very real possibility that he might even love Steve a little.

“Fuck me,” he breathed, quickly looking around to make sure no small children had heard him. Well, loving Steve – even just a little – was enough to explain why the very idea of him being hurt was enough to cause Danny to set something on fire. The problem, though, was that Steve very often got injured on the job. How could he not, when he flung himself into potentially life-threatening situations?

“Pain in my ass,” Danny muttered, taking his phone from his pocket and checking the time. It was close to dinner time, and a rumbling in his belly confirmed it. He wasn’t too far from a take-out place he and Grace liked, he could easily just walk over and pick something up. Frowning, Danny considered picking something up for Steve, too, as a way of saying ‘sorry I’ve been a dick to you the last few days.’ Liking that he had a plan, Danny set things into motion.

~*~

Steve was glaring at the inside of his fridge, wondering of he could force food to appear by shear will. He didn’t think so, but it was worth a try.

A knock at the door drew him from the kitchen, grumbling. Throwing the door open, he was surprised to see that it was Danny – who never knocked – and then realized that of course he knocked, his hands were full. He probably couldn’t open the door.

“Are you going to stand there or are you going to let me in?” Danny called, eyebrow quirked.

Stepping aside, Steve followed Danny into the kitchen, mouth watering as the aromas of Chinese take-out wafted through the house. He didn’t usually eat that sort of stuff, put it in the category of “treats,” but Danny seemed to know what he’d been wanting and had magically appeared at his door, laden down with such treats.

“So I wanted to apologize for being such a douchebag,” Danny was saying, setting up containers on the counter. “This case really got to me, and I was taking it out on you.”

Steve shrugged. “Happens to all of us… won’t say to no to food as penance, though.”

“Figured you wouldn’t,” Danny grinned. Steve fetched plates and silverware while Danny rooted around in another bag for beer, cracking two open. They loaded up and took their spoils out to the lanai, tucking in and drinking up.

“What was it about the case, Danno?” Steve asked once he’d polished off his plate. Danny shot him a look, seeming to need to compose himself.

“Hit a little close to home, that’s all.”

“Close to home? How so?”

Danny’s brows drew together. “It’s hard to say… something about it just reminded me of a case I had back in Jersey.”

“Yeah? Did it not go well?”

“No, it didn’t.”

Danny didn’t say anything else on the matter, and Steve refrained from pressing the issue, despite really wanting to know. Truth was, Danny was looking pale and slightly panicky, like his thoughts were going a mile a minute and never, in all the time they’d known each other, had Danny ever refrained from revealing his thoughts. It was disconcerting.

“Well, it’s done with now. I mean, it will be when we figure out what happened to her.”

Grunting in response, Danny finished the beer in his hand before heading into the house. Steve made to follow, but remained in his seat when he heard the fridge open and close and saw Danny return with more beer.

The silence stretched on, and eventually other topics came up, the two of them easing into their usual back-and-forth.

~*~

_Six months later…_

“He thinks I tell him these things for my health!” Danny raged, fumbling into his TAC vest. “Like I get some sort of, of, of _perverse pleasure_ from it!”

Chin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s exactly what McGarrett thinks.”

“You guys ready? SWAT is almost in position,” Kono murmured from her position by the door, rifle clutched in her slender fingers.  
Both men responded in the affirmative, and scuttled out into the open. Steve – because of course – had gone in alone, to try and take out the bad guys himself. “Text book operation,” he’d called it, and the entire rest of the team had all but throttled him, indignant as they were about the whole thing. They’d made him swear they’d go in together, all shaking hands and everything. He’d promised.

A sour taste found itself in Danny’s mouth, and he fought the urge to vomit. The guys had taken Steve hostage, and while he’d tried to tell them he’d be fine, they knew better. _Danny_ knew better, knew it within the core of himself.

Forming a perimeter, one of the SWAT guys made his way over and told them they’d been able to catch sight of Steve, but getting to him was going to be tricky. The folks who were holding him were expecting something, were going to trade Steve for something they needed, and if the deal went bad, they’d rigged the building to blow. They’d die, yes, but Steve would die with them, and Danny refused to even go there.

“What do you suggest?” he whispered hoarsely, when the SWAT guy looked at him with sympathetic eyes.

“We need to get one of our guys in there; biggest priority is disarming the explosives. No one on this property is safe with those things still hooked up.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Kono demanded, eyes slightly wild beneath the sweaty tangle of her hair. “The bomb suits alone weigh, what, two-hundred pounds?”

Before SWAT guy could respond, Danny was removing his TAC vest. “I’ll do it. We’ve seen these guys before, right? We know what sorts of explosives they use, and even if I don’t, I’m sure Steve can talk me through it.”

Chin and Kono just stared at him while SWAT guy tried to figure out the best way to tell him he was crazy. The cousins shared a look before nodding, Chin heaving a huge sigh. “Fine,” he said, holding up a hand so no one would interrupt. “But I’m hooking you up with a wire. This is completely bug-shit, even for you guys.”

Danny shrugged. “Steve would do it for us.”

Kono merely nodded again, glaring at SWAT guy when he tried to protest. They got Danny wired up, checking to make sure they were all communicating properly, and then SWAT took him aside and gave him a brief layout of the inside.  
Danny was barely listening, though, was too focused on the task at hand.

And the gallons and gallons of explosives inside. He could feel them, could practically _smell_ them, and something about the proximity was making his blood sing. He hadn’t told Steve or anyone about the pyro-kinesis, had taken to going on solo “camping trips” here and there just to let off steam. The blazes were always close to bodies of water, and he always directed them so they’d put themselves out; he didn’t want to destroy an entire ecosystem just because he was having his man-period.

Shaking himself loose of the SWAT people, he shimmied his way up a rusted fire-escape and peered through the dirty window. Steve was sitting, bound to a cement column. His head was lolled forward, so Danny couldn’t see if he was conscious or not; the thought that he might not be made something painful clench in his chest. On the other side of the window was a catwalk, and Danny managed to shimmy his way inside, cursing silently when the back pocket of his khakis got caught. _No more malasadas,_ he thought, squeezing the lower half of himself through the window and settling into a crouch on the catwalk.

The scent of the explosives was suddenly richer, headier, and he took stock of the drums. They were stacked two high, in clusters of four to six, every so many feet. Really, there was a god-fucking _lot_ of it, and Danny felt somewhat ill at the amount of damage all of that stuff going up could do. He could feel it like a buzz beneath his skin, and he hoped he was able to remain calm enough to unplug whatever he needed to unplug.

The men who were holding Steve were tucked away into a smaller room, what served as an “office” when the building was a still a functioning manufacturer. One had been appointed as a guard, though he hardly seemed to be paying attention to Steve. This angered Danny for some reason, knowing first hand how dangerous Steve could be, especially when you weren’t paying attention to him.

Crawling on his belly along the catwalk, Danny grunted with dismay: the control box that linked all of the explosives together – and thus had dozens of lengths of wire leading to it – was ensconced within the office, presumably in the hands of whoever happened to be in charge. Dismantling the control box meant not dealing with the explosives directly, but being unable to get to it put him in a serious tight spot. The idea to just snip the wires individually popped up but was quickly squashed; Danny had no idea if tampering with them would set anything off, and he wasn’t exactly of a mind to find out.

Stilling on the catwalk, he watched the guard lean closer to Steve, using the butt of his gun to turn the prone man’s head this way and that. The slack of Steve’s jaw and the way his body was moving was enough to tell Danny the other man was well and truly out cold. Ice swam through his veins; not good, so very not good. Watching the other man’s detached interest in Steve made Danny’s hackles rise, but he remains where he is for now. Moving might draw the guy’s attention, and that is yet another thing he doesn’t need.

The guard is called into the office then, and Danny takes his chance, shimmying down from the catwalk and darting across the floor to duck behind some of the barrels. He’s closer to Steve now, but not close to enough to really gauge the state of his injuries. He blinks sweat out of his eyes and finds himself fighting to concentrate; this many accelerants in such a close proximity is playing with his head.

The boss, or who Danny presumes is the boss, strolls out of the office then, followed by the guard and one other. He’s yelling in a language Danny doesn’t understand, waving his arms and gesturing in Steve’s direction, like he’s saying “we have a loose end here, take care of it.” The guard has his gun out, as does the other goon, who makes to untie Steve from the column.

Danny is struck then with the image of these men doing something terrible to Steve, vulnerable as he is, and he’s swept with a sickening wave of déjà vu. The rage, panic, and fear from a long ago dream well up inside, and Danny clenches every muscle in his body, willing himself to remain still, to not go postal.

It’s difficult.

Every ounce of resolve he’d had is wiped away when one of the goons strikes Steve across the face, like they’re slapping him awake. Any rules he might’ve followed, any regulations he might’ve trusted are gone with the sound of a fist connecting with finely honed cheekbones.

The guard, who’d been prodding Steve earlier, bursts into flames.

In the midst of the screaming and a handful of the guy other guys going the same route, Danny scurries over to Steve, quickly checks him over for obvious injuries, and begins to try and drag him over to safety. A guy – not on fire – sees them and starts shouting. Danny’s head is pounding, trying to keep the human torches from burning out of control and also focus on not getting them killed.

When a shot is fired, he unceremoniously drops Steve – whispering an apology as he steps over him – and strides back in the direction of the melee, fists balled at his sides. There are pained moans from the burning and burned men on the ground; the shots have ceased, and sound has seemed to stop as well as the guys watch Danny.

“I’m not in the mood for this,” Danny says simply, before one by one each man bursts into flame, screams of agony echoing to the rafters. All of them burning together feels easier, so he watches them with an air if disinterest… until he feels a flicker of something not right. Sniffing the air, he realizes that one of the accelerant drums is open and emitting fumes. He has a split second to dive over to Steve’s prone form and protect it with his own before the oxygen in the room is sucked upwards.

There is a surge of something _powerful_ in Danny’s chest then, something that makes him pluck out his earpiece despite the yells and stand. He can breathe fine, notes that he and Steve are the only things _not_ on fire, and opens his arms.

The roof blows off the building; Danny can hear yelling and screaming from outside, can hear the sirens of fire trucks as they approach with water and hoses. Fire belches out of the hole in the ceiling, burning up the sky as it goes. With eyes closed, Danny can see the fireball in his mind, can also see the large body of water close to them, and judges that he can douse the flames there without anyone else getting hurt. He makes the choice, mentally dragging the fireball over, like a balloon on a string.

There is a deafening hiss, like steam escaping a very large teapot, and Danny feels the fire leave him. He slumps, suddenly exhausted, but returns his focus to Steve, who is now sitting up, staring around him bewildered. Danny can’t even imagine how he must look, has no idea how much Steve has seen, and feels his heart pinch at the terrified expression on Steve’s face as Danny moves towards him.

“Danno…” he says, voice trembling as his eyes dart around the room, taking in the warped metal of the drums, the lack of roof, the bodies in varying stages of char around them. “What… what… what…”

“Shhh,” Danny interrupts him, palms out, taking a knee a few feet away, making himself seem as not threatening as possible.  
“You’re ok; I think you bumped your head, but I didn’t really get a chance to check more than that. Everything is fine.”

“What…” Steve repeats, eyes huge. Danny sighs; that reaction pretty much solidifies the fact that Steve saw almost everything. There’s a really good chance the man has a concussion, so Danny hopes that maybe some of this can be blamed on that.

“What the fuck was that!” Kono shouts, running up to them, her own eyes huge in her face. “Danny, what the fuck was that.”

“One of them must’ve tripped the explosives,” he replied, shrugging.

“No way anyone should’ve survived that,” Chin was saying, turning in a slow circle to survey the damage. “No way. And the what the hell was that fireball? The wind wasn’t even _blowing_ in that direction.”

The cousins stare at Danny, because he’s alive and the thugs who took Steve are not; they are burned almost beyond recognition and all Danny and Steve have are some ash on their clothes. Danny knows it isn’t the time or place for that explanation, though, so he tells them that after everyone has been looked over by EMTs, he’ll tell them everything they need to know.

Satisfied for the time being, the crew gets to work, bringing in stretchers to take Steve to an ambulance and the bodies to the morgue. Danny ambles along behind, his knee screaming at him now. He doesn’t care; Steve is _alive_.

~*~

Danny isn’t shocked to see a mass text from Steve about two weeks later asking that everyone meet at his place for dinner and beer. He knows it’s an excuse for the team to grill him, to ask him how the hell they weren’t burnt to cinders like everyone else in that building.

He had no choice but to tell them the truth; whether or not they believed him was entirely up to them.

Settled around a fire-pit in the sand, they talked quietly until Steve turned his attention to Danny. “I know what I saw, Danno,” he says to start. “I don’t quite believe it, but I know what I saw.” He then told Kono and Chin, who looked at each other, Danny, then back at Steve. When he finishes, all eyes are on Danny in the darkness.

Huffing a breath, Danny focuses on the wood in the fire-pit – left unlit, and wasn’t that just a little obvious, Steven – and pretends not to notice the little gasps from around him as the fire suddenly comes to life.

Chin grabs a stick and pokes at the fire, as if to test whether or not it was real. Satisfied, he drops back into his seat and turns his attention back to Danny, quietly asking him to just tell them.

“In the building… there was no way to take all of those guys out _and_ keep one of them from detonating the bomb. I have this… this thing, where if I think of something, or picture it, that thing ends up on fire. The first time was when I was a kid… it was a rose bush. Matty got pushed into it and I lit it on fire. After that it was small things… until the shack. I…” Danny trails off, shooting a look at Steve, who is as blank-faced as a statue.

“One of my first cases in Jersey was this serial rapist. He’d catch these women… god, they were kids, these girls and take them out to this shack. He’d have his way with them, and he’d kill them and leave them there. We could never figure out how he was doing it, until someone found the shack. I remember being so angry, because none of those girls deserved that. My rage was focused on the shack, and so the shack caught fire.

“There hasn’t been anything like that since, just small things… I learned how to keep it contained, sort of. It’s almost entirely related to my emotions and moods… anger, panic, fear, rage. So I took up meditation, anger control management techniques… just going out and lighting stuff up if I needed to let off steam. That’s only recently, though, since everything with the Maria Shawn case.”

Danny turned his attention to Steve specifically. “That’s what was getting to me; she was like me, sort of. The fire came out of her, from her body, not just from her mind. I’d wanted to talk to her about it but… she died. I figured I needed to really know what was up with me so I started doing more research and, well… the warehouse was me finally just letting it go. Because I knew I could control it. I knew I could keep us safe.”

He’s met with dead silence; not even the night insects seem to have anything to say. Kono asks a question after a moment, and Danny makes the fire dance, coming up out of the pit and swirling around them before going back down. After that she seems convinced. Chin makes a face, but nods after a while; he’s willing to accept things, also, it would seem.  
That leaves Steve, who’s expression has not changed. He remains silent, eyes impossibly dark in the flickering light of the fire. The mood has changed, and the cousins bid them goodbye. Danny doesn’t acknowledge the fact that they’ve left; his entire focus is on Steve.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before.” It’s a statement, and Steve says it in that disconnected way of his. Danny flinches.  
“Would you have believed me, if I’d tried? It all sounds a little fantastical, doesn’t it?”

Steve glares. “Do you have that little faith in me, Danny, huh?”

“It isn’t a lack of _faith_ , Steven, or anything else. Someone comes up to you and says ‘hi, I’m pyro-kinetic, how’s your day going?’ I doubt your first reaction is going to be ‘that’s cool, and hey, did you hear about the Red Sox.’ C’mon, let’s be realistic here.”

“You still could’ve tried. All this time, I felt like you were… you were separating yourself from us. Going on your little camping trips alone, not hanging out with me… I thought I’d done something.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “You always think it’s your fault, babe, it’s what you do.”

“This isn’t funny! I had nightmares about you leaving m—the task force,” Steve says, catching himself. Danny hears him anyway.  
“Nightmares? I’m not going anywhere. Grace is here. I have a life here. _You’re_ here. Why would I leave if I didn’t have to?”

“You weren’t talking to me, you were closed off… you tell me about _everything_ , you keep me included even when you don’t have to and lately you haven’t been so I just thought…”

Now his chair. He waits until Steve stops fidgeting long enough to look at him before speaking.

“I had nightmares, too. I had nightmares where you got shot and I couldn’t do anything to save you. Y’know what else? There was fire in those nightmares. The idea of you being hurt or potentially dying frightens me _that much_ , I lit my sheets on fire in my sleep.”  
“… I _knew_ I heard you say something about that!”

Danny thumped Steve on the forehead. “Nosy goof. But yeah… the idea of those guys doing anything to you… I guess I snapped. They were just all on fire, but of course I wasn’t thinking straight, worrying about you, so then the whole places goes up and I couldn’t have that. The explosion tore the roof off because I wanted it that way, and I pushed the fireball out and into the water so it wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“You care about me that much?” Steve’s tone is calm, but also cautiously hopeful, like he can’t believe anyone – let alone Danny – would bother.

“Are you—really? _Yes,_ you lunatic. I care about you a whole fucking lot; one might even wager that I love you a little.”

“You lit people on fire because you love me.”

“You make it sound so romantic,” Danny blushed, ducking his head.

“Well it is, kind of, in a weird way.”

Before he can reply, Steve is leaning over and pressing warm lips to Danny’s, and all thoughts of responding are taken from him. He opens his mouth and allows Steve access, groaning when their tongues touch. Steve’s tongue beckons to him, and then Danny tastes Steve, finding him warm and sweet and beery. It’s an odd but delicious combination. Steve moans low in his throat when Danny sucks on his tongue, whines when Danny leans back and struggles to his feet, bad knee aching.

“I’d love to continue this, but I fear if we do it out here one of us will end up in traction, and I doubt it’ll be me.”

Steve launches from his seat, grabbing Danny by the hand and dragging him into the house. He makes a split second pause, considering going up the stairs or to the couch, and opts for the couch. Danny laughs, and Steve mumbles about being presumptuous.

Danny just hums, stretching out over Steve on the couch and settling comfortable into the cradle of the other man’s hips. Periodically they rock against one another, not looking to get off so much as really feel one against the other. Danny thinks he could get lost in Steve’s kisses, how hungry the other man is for him, how possessive Steve’s hands are where they firmly grip Danny’s ass. He chuckles against Steve’s throat when the other man wraps his long legs around his hips, holding him in place.

“Not going anywhere,” he murmurs against the soft skin of Steve’s throat, grazing the skin with his teeth. Steve arches into him, arching his neck.

“Keeping you close anyway,” he pants, one hand coming up to tangle in Danny’s hair. “Been wanting this so bad, wasn’t sure… didn’t know if you’d let me.”

“I would always let you,” Danny says softly, leveling himself up to look Steve in the eye. The other man blinks at him, smiling fondly and cupping Danny’s face between his large hands. Their lips meet again, and Danny settles into the warmth of the body beneath him, allowing someone else’s heat to fill him up for a change.

-FIN-

**Author's Note:**

> [Kahi Mohala Behavioral Health](http://www.kahimohala.org/)
> 
> is a real hospital in Ewa Beach; for the purpose of this story, I’m borrowing the hospital’s name and “relocating” it. It looks like a perfectly nice establishment that does good work, no harm intended, again just borrowing the name.


End file.
